The present invention relates to a card reader and writer for reading and writing information from and to a magnetic information recording card. In particular, the present invention relates to a card reader and writer for reading and writing information by moving a head in a card width direction perpendicular to a card insertion direction.
The conventional card reader and writers has two types: an automatic type wherein a card is inserted and ejected automatically; a manual type wherein a card is not automatically inserted and ejected. In many conventional card reader and writers, the card insertion/ejection direction and the head moving direction are the same.
An automatic type card reader and writer performs read processing and write processing after a card is inserted into the interior of the device and therefore it is possible to prevent the malfunction caused by operation performed by a user. However, since the card is inserted completely into the interior of the device, a deformed card is apt to jam within the device (card jam). Further a card unjust acquisition called phishing may occur wherein a card is intentionally jammed in the interior of the device and is pulled out and taken away while a user leaves the site to go for a person in charge.
The manual card reader and writers include a swipe type and an insertion type, whose structures do not permit the execution of write. According to these types, the read performance is directly influenced by the motion of the user's hand and therefore it is difficult to obtain a stable read characteristic.
Since the motion of the card is large in these devices of the manual type, skimming is apt to occur in which card information is read unjustly by a head mechanism additionally mounted within each device or near the card inlet.
As devices for solving such problems involved in the manual type there have been developed various card reader and writers configured such that a head is moved in a card information read/write direction perpendicular to a card insertion/ejection direction (see, for example, References 1 and 2).
[Reference 1] Japanese Patent No. 2586324
[Reference 2] Japanese Patent No. 2793434
However, even in a card reader and writer wherein a head moves in a card information read/write direction perpendicular to a card insertion/ejection direction as mentioned above, there is the possibility of occurrence of card jam and phishing as in the automatic type if the device is of a structure wherein the card is inserted completely into the interior of the device.
This problem can be solved by adopting a structure wherein read and write are performed in a state of the card not completely inserted into the interior of the device. However, if the card is not completely inserted into the interior of the device, the state of loading of the card becomes unstable and it has heretofore been impossible to perform a stable operation at the time of moving the head to read or write information.